LETTER XVIII 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, Jan. 29^, 1774. 



DEAR SIR, The house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, 

 is undoubtedly the first comer of all the British hirundines ; 

 and appears in general on or about the thirteenth of April, 

 as I have remarked from many years observation. Not 

 but now and then a straggler is seen much earlier : and, in 

 particular, when I was a boy I observed a swallow for a 

 whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday ; 

 which day could not fall out later than the middle of 

 March, and often happened early in February. 



It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first 

 about lakes and mill-ponds ; and it is also very particular, 

 that if these early visitors happen to find frost and snow, 

 as was the case of the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 

 1771, they immediately withdraw for a time. A circum- 

 stance this much more in favour of hiding than migration ; 

 since it is much more probable that a bird should retire to 

 its hybernaculum just at hand, than return for a week or 

 two to warmer latitudes. 1 



The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by 

 no means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within 

 barns and outhouses against the rafters ; and so she did in 

 VirgiFs time : 



Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo." 



1 See vol. i. pp. 100, 102. [R. B. S.] 

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